US media confirmed that the US Congress’s Foreign Affairs Committee approved a bill to punish Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
This relates to the case of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in early October 2018 inside the Kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
Democratic Congressman Ilhan Omar proposed the bill to allow sanctions to be imposed on bin Salman and his private assets.
Omar proposed an amendment that would expose the Saudi crown prince’s private companies to sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act.
Actual economic sanctions
The proposed amendment would strengthen the Khashoggi Accountability Act that is currently before the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee for consideration.
This is to include possible economic sanctions against Saudi officials, led by bin Salman.
Last month, US President Joe Biden’s administration secretly released a US intelligence report on the Khashoggi assassination.
The report points an accusing finger at the crown prince, but the Biden administration refused to impose sanctions on him, noting the need to preserve the US-Saudi relationship.
In response, Omar and Representative Tom Malinowski (Democrat of New Jersey) proposed a bill to punish the crown prince.
Last week, the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee chose to go ahead with the Khashoggi Accountability Act that Malinowski proposed.
Travel ban
The law includes imposing a travel ban, not economic sanctions, on the Saudi officials mentioned in the CIA report on Khashoggi’s killing.
The amendment to the law would require the US State Department to issue a report within six months on all private enterprises and companies owned in whole or in part by these officials, including Mohammed bin Salman.
The State Department will need to certify whether these organizations played a role in the Khashoggi killing or “any other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” and whether these organizations are subject to sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
The Global Magnitsky Act was passed in 2016 in memory of a lawyer who died in Russian police custody. It imposes economic sanctions and a visa ban on foreign officials “responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
In addition to the Malinovsky bill, the Saudi government is also facing a lawsuit from Khashoggi’s widow and Democracy Now for the Arab World.